


The Nature of Things

by misereremolly



Series: Ficlets, Snippets, and Drabbles: Final Fantasy RPG AU [3]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Crossover, M/M, Servants, Stripping, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 00:53:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misereremolly/pseuds/misereremolly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garak grapples with concepts of love and loyalty.</p><p>I don’t have a timeline for these little stories yet. This one takes place sometime after the others have figured out that Garak is actually a dark knight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nature of Things

**Author's Note:**

> At some point dziwaczka suggested that Bashir and Jadzia were royalty; maybe prince and princess of different kingdoms, and I am running with this. 
> 
>  
> 
> [ This ](http://dziwaczka.tumblr.com/post/28400102902/who-wants-a-ds9-fantasy-rpg-au-because-i-know-i-do/)
> 
>  
> 
> lovely sketch by the awesome dziwaczka over on Tumblr inspired me to write "Roadside Confessions," a quick, silly little Final Fantasy AU with Garak and Bashir. And it's now a series.  
> [ Here's a link to some more fabulous art by dziwaczka.](http://dziwaczka.tumblr.com/post/30248093605/more-ds9-fantasy-rpg-au-theres-a-few-extra)
> 
> Familiarity with the Final Fantasy games is not required to understand the stories!

Their arrival at the village Bajora had, all in all, gone rather well. Ranger Kira had made the introductions to her people, announcing Paladin Sisko and his party as trusted comrades. Odo had gruffly nodded his support, and the geomancer’s word went far with the locals, who had long ago embraced him as one of their own. But it was inevitable that they would uncover the wolf in the fold, and although he had carefully drawn the hood of his cloak over his face and held his tongue he was not infallibly inconspicuous, and his presence had tainted their welcome. 

Garak did not begrudge them their hostility, and had quietly confided as much to Lord Bashir as they watched Paladin Sisko haggle with the innkeeper, a gruff curmudgeon of a man who at first had refused to allow Garak to stay in the inn at all and was now trying to charge the price of a honeymoon suite for a bed of hay in the chocobo stables. 

“Still,” the Healer replied. “It’s not as though you were personally responsible for the occupation.”

Garak found himself stunned into silence. Perhaps it was true that he had never laid hands on a Bajoran – either literally or figuratively, an important distinction in his former line of work – but he had been a devoted servant to his Emperor, the faithful dagger hidden close to his master’s hand, a deadly weapon honed by unwavering constancy that was all too willing to be used according to his master’s will. No, he had never personally killed a man of Bajora, but he had done so much more as the unseen blade in the name of his homeland and its order of things; as far as he was concerned that made him as complicit in Bajora’s fate as any of the rest of his people. 

But there was no use explaining such things to this naïve white mage, and there were more pressing concerns at the moment -- Sisko’s rising voice was starting to make him nervous. Quiet glares and muttered words from outraged Bajorans were one thing, but at this rate he would end up as a target for more violent reprisals. 

He caught Lady Jadzia’s eye and nodded her over. “Perhaps it would be best if I took a tent outside of the city gates,” he quietly offered. 

She looked at him with an expression of mixed sympathy and gratitude, but Bashir immediately bristled at his words. Garak squelched a little thrill of hope at the man’s obvious protectiveness and raised a placating hand, but Bashir wasn’t having it. “No! This is ridiculous,” he growled, ignoring Jadzia’s hissing protests as he spun in a whirl of robes and stomped right up to the desk beside Sisko. 

“That man,” he spat, stabbing a finger at Garak, “cannot stay all the way out in the stables.” A moment’s hesitation as the innkeeper folded his arms and glared, but the young mage gave a haughty toss of his head, drew up to his full height and blustered on. “He cannot stay in the stables because he is my servant, and he needs to do his job. What do you expect me to do if I need something in the middle of the night? And who else is going to fetch my breakfast and make sure my robes are clean and my equipment ready for our journey?” 

Sisko and Jadzia gaped with horror, but Garak, an admitted connoisseur of such things, thought it was nicely done; Lord Bashir looked every inch the petulant princeling. 

The innkeeper looked a little mollified by the idea of a Cardassian humbled in service to a Human. “Well, alright,” he finally drawled. “He can stay in with you, then. I’ll be charging you double for that room, though.” 

Sisko and the innkeeper finished their haggling and they all split off to settle in for the night. Bashir swung open the heavy door to their room and they saw at once that the innkeeper had managed a bit of revenge. The room had only one small bed – barely large enough for a grown man -- and a servant’s pallet at its foot. 

Bashir’s jaw dropped with dismay. “This is…!” 

“Ridiculous?” Garak finished with a chuckle. “There’s no use complaining, my lord. It is only one night. We will make do.”

They closed the door and Garak set his cloak and their bag of supplies on a chair while Bashir laid his book and oak staff on the dresser, right beside the fresh sleep clothes and extra blankets the inn had provided. 

“Well, you can take the bed and I – “

Garak firmly shook his head. “My lord, your gallantry does you credit, but that would be most improper. Besides,” he continued with a mischievous smile, “what if someone were to come in and see you on the floor with your servant sleeping on the bed? No, you shall take the bed and I will be grateful to be in the warmth of the inn rather than shivering the night away in a cold stable.”

Bashir looked abashed. “Look, Garak, I’m sorry about –”

He waved away the apology; provoking guilt hadn’t been his intention. “I took no offense, my lord! Your little tantrum worked perfectly; I had no idea you were such a skilled actor. Now, if you don’t mind, it’s been a long week and I am very tired…”

“Oh. Right.” Bashir turned back to the dresser and picked up one of the long nightshirts, hesitating. 

Garak sighed to himself and took the other one, crossing over to the other side of the room. He carefully turned his back to the white mage and started to undress in slow, deliberate movements – unlacing his gauntlets, slowly undoing the clasps on his vest – and after a few moments he heard cloth sliding against skin as Bashir started to disrobe. He closed his eyes and took a quiet breath, wishing that he could close his ears against the sounds. 

Garak busied himself with carefully folding his clothes until he heard Bashir climb into bed. He plucked the laundry bag from the hook on the wall and placed his clothes inside, walking back to the bedside and bending down to gather Bashir’s robes from the floor.

“Oh, wait, I can do that,” Bashir said, leaping up from bed to stand beside him.

But he’d just swept the last robe into the bag. “All done,” he replied, straightening. “It is my job tonight, after all.” 

Bashir’s face fell, and his expression was so unbearably pitiful that he had to smile. “My dear Lord Healer, you still can’t tell when I am teasing you?”

The young man carefully returned his smile. “I’m not sure I’ll ever really understand you, Garak.”

It took quite a lot of will to move away from Bashir’s soft murmurs and curving mouth. “Well, our journey isn’t over yet,” he said with forced brightness as he set the laundry just outside their door and locked it for the night. “You still have plenty of time to try.”

Bashir used the extra blankets to line the pallet, and pulled the quilt from his bed and handed it to Garak. “I’m fine with just the linens,” he explained. “You get cold so easily.”

He accepted the quilt and cursed the irrational swell of gratitude in his chest. “Thank you.”

The young man smiled at him and hopped into bed. “Goodnight, Garak.”

“Goodnight, my lord.”

Bashir was sound asleep in minutes. Garak lay on the pallet and listened to the soft snores, marveling that the young man could be so trusting. That his fellow travelers could be so trusting.

He was all too aware of the looks the others gave him; those cautious but hopeful glances every time he did something helpful. Their hopes all stemmed from the fairy tales outsiders liked to tell about his kind – the dark knight who is redeemed through good works, transformed as a reward into a shining Paladin so the outside may reflect the new man within. But these were tales told by dreamers and fools; and even if they were true, he was not that kind of man. The only other member of their party that seemed to understand this was Paladin Sisko – it was clear in the way Sisko looked at him that he would never trust him. Polar opposites always recognized their mirror images. The most hopelessly optimistic of all of them was Lord Bashir, and it had shocked Garak to his core to realize that it actually caused him pain to think that he was destined to disappoint the young man. There was nothing he could say that would shake the trust the white mage had in him. Perhaps it was in Bashir’s nature to have faith. Just as it was perhaps in his nature to be drawn to the white mage. 

There were accounts of dark knights and white mages traveling together; and unlike the redemptive fables, Garak knew that those stories were true. Once in times of war they were sent to the battlefield in pairs, shadow and light bringing the perfect compliment of destruction and restoration. With a white mage at their side, a dark knight was free to let go, to immerse their souls in the bloody truths of death, confident that their anchor to life would pull them back from the brink. And in return, they defended the mages with their lives. There were ugly stories of white mages that were subjugated by dark knights, forced to serve; but it was far more common that they came together for joint purpose, and sometimes partnerships would even result in love bonds, famously unbreakable, forged by mutual care and protection.

But this was another time and place. He had only rarely been called to open battle; his life’s work had been far more silent and insidious, not the sort of anti-hero’s legend romanticized in folk tales by the hearth. It was a sin of vanity to imagine it any other way. Yet still, if it could have been, he would have protected Lord Bashir with his life, bringing death to anyone who dared raise a sword against that slim throat, even if it meant his own destruction. 

Garak turned onto his side to face the white mage, tucking his arm under the thin pillow and drawing the quilt over his shoulders. A brown foot was sticking out over the side of the bed. He huffed with amusement and shut his eyes. 

His homeland may be lost to him; he may be forced to live out the rest of his life a shamed exile, cursed to forever love his land from afar. He accepted this as his duty and his joy. But, just for tonight, he would allow his heart to find comfort and contentment sleeping at Lord Bashir’s feet.

**Author's Note:**

> Bashir’s a White Mage. Garak is a Dark/Fell Knight masquerading as a Thief. Jadzia’s a Blue Mage, Worf is a Monk, Kira’s a Ranger, Sisko’s a Paladin, Odo’s a Geomancer, and O’Brien is a Machinist.


End file.
